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[Quarque]

My last fort went down because the first trader caravan that arrived had a diplomat with a were curse, who went berserk in my dining hall. I gave up as soon as I noticed what was going on..

So.. how do I prevent this from happening in the future? The only practical defense I can think of against this kind of attack is walling in and never allowing traders into the fortress again. Was this extreme bad luck?

[Oran Legendstone]

Seem like a case of really bad luck from my experience. Not really something to expect too often from caravans, but to stay prepared for such a thing I would put my trade depot in a large airlock with bridges with the lever near the dwarves main point of congregation. That way if something breaks out in there you can simply seal if off till you can deal with it. Prepared airlocks are usually a safe bet for any in-fort problem imo.

[Nolimit]

I had an impression that werecreatures always leave their civilization when cursed and settle in some lair. Your diplomat probably was bitten just recently, either in world gen, or even on your site (keep in mind, that werebeasts arrive invisible on your site, because of that it is possible to completely miss combats involving them and merchants/visitors). So it was really bad luck, most of the times werebeasts wouldn't enter your tavern/dining hall that easy.
In my opinion werecreatures in current version is one of the most unpredictable encounters for your fort, and can easily end early fortresses. Though, you can still prepare: early detection system helps a lot, just chain some animals at the entrance; if there was any combat involving werecreatures, then involved dwarves should be quarantined; good military preferably in full armor also helps a lot; you can also look for full moons and lock yourself up every month, but that would take away too much fun.

[PatrikLundell]

It's a case of extremely bad luck, and I wouldn't go through the hassle of defending against it. However, I can think of some measures:
1. Play as a dead civ (which I do, but not for this reason). Nobody bothers to send diplomats to dead civs...
2. Follow Oran Legendstone's advice and have an airlock at least inside of the trade depot and lock it in preparation for the caravan's arrival (with all the dorfs inside). Let the traders continue to the trade depot as normal and open the airlock only after the full moon has passed (the times are available on the wiki).
3. Keep the airlock between the trade depot and the outside locked until after the full moon. That causes the wagons to bypass your site, but the rest of the caravan waits until their visit window is over. You may want to use this option if you want to haul junk to the trade depot for disposal while the quarantine is in effect.
4. Make a DFHack script to check for weres in the caravan and run it for every caravan (I suspect you'd have to run it multiple times to catch caravan members coming in off map). As an alternative, exported Legends Mode should allow you to check the diplomat.

Nolimit typed faster than I did, so there's a fair bit of overlap.
The diplomat didn't get bitten on the embark, as bitten characters turn the next full moon, not the current one. Also, a were attack involving the caravan that passes without any notice should be very rare. In most cases the caravan would bolt and you would have dead and injured caravan members and guards all over the place, in addition to a dead were.

[Thisfox]

It's very rare that that sort of thing would happen, and if it does, they're usually the other sort of night creature, vampires. But. If it had happened to me:

I keep a lot of doors in my fort, from every room, through every hallway, and hatches on all the staircases. I would have paused, and started locking doors all over the sodding place. Werebeasts CAN break through doors, but in my experience, only very rarely do break through them, and a room with a door, and a hallway with a door at the other end, tends to be enough to lock to prevent them from going and rampaging throughout the place.

All dorfs who were locked in with him are suspect. Dispose of them in a drowning chamber, or room them somewhere permanently, and wall over the locked door. If you don't use burrows (I don't) designate some deep tomb as the only "hospital", and when all injured are in there, lock the door to the tomb, then wall over it. End of problem. If they don't transform in a month, unwall them. But they invariably do. The survivor of the resultant werebattle, if you didn't room them seperately, will live forever in this tomb.

Then wait, making a nice selection of coffins and slabs for those who didn't make it. Migration will eventually heal the hole in the fort population. I've been reduced to three dorfs, at one point, and a few years later, I'm back to 70, despite the danger.

[Fleeting Frames]

While the advice for merchant bunkers is always decent, I'd note that diplomat acts more like a visitor. Who goes to meet you mayor straight away and then goes into tavern.

As dwarven traders' diplomat is a member of your civ, you should also treat it as loyalty cascade. One in your tavern? Yeah, seal it off. Maybe even use a contraption to kill everyone within, in very bad cases where you only have enemies of your civ/group left. All your legendaries dead is bad, but all your remaining legendaries bent on killing everyone else is worse.

[PatrikLundell]

Diplomats go all over the place, that's why I suggested a quarantine of the trade depot over the next full moon: after that they're safe to let in.

While weres attack doors frequently, in my experience, it takes time, and that time goes against their were transformation timer, so I doubt they'd be able to break down more than two or max three doors before reverting. My fortresses have long entrance tunnels with a watch (adopting) cat locked inside a dog box with a view down to the tunnel entrance. When a were sneaks in I order the inner and outer drawbridges of the affected tunnel to be closed, and as the were nears the entrance to the courtyard I lock the sacrificial door there. Most of the time the door is not broken down before the were converts back, and when it is destroyed the dorfs have pulled the drawbridge levers. Once the were converts back I open the outer drawbridge and then collect the normal form were from a cage trap.

The heavy handed approach to were massacre victim handling is to use Thisfox' method. If the victims are citizens, locking them up in individual rooms in the hospital and then bricking over the doors over the next full moon allows you to save those that weren't infected. Visitors are another case, though. If a massacre happened in the tavern I'd probably withdraw all citizens with a civ alert and then brick it up. Then I'd probably create a new exit passage filled with repeating menacing spike traps and doors, so the exiting visitors could be locked up and be "disinfected" (moving the tavern should get them to exit faster).

And, by the way, Thisfox, your avatar has expired (probably a month or so ago. Happened to one or two other people as well).

[Fleeting Frames]

If you guarantee only depot the diplomat comes in using the default entrance. Unless you have only one entrance, and are sealing yourself off from outside.

For the hospital advice, I like to build entrance to hospital beds from hatches above instead of doors. Don't need bricking in that case. Still, her advice has merit as it is easier to train up a new weaponsmith, armormsmith, etc. than to set up individual were-bunker for each of the turned dwarves.

[Sanctume]

Visitors seem to like pools of water, and even diplomats. 

Maybe setting up a meeting area next to a pool of water with roofed tables and chair, then add this to an existing tavern. 
Then maybe toggle the nobles' office next to this one too.

[Fleeting Frames]

Oh yeah, visitors tend to use 4-6/7 deep pools of waters as shortcuts (being out of the way doesn't seem to work as much) instead of heading over dry land and get stuck there for months. In my previous tests it didn't seem to be entirely consistent, and I've kinda forgotten about it as greater visitor churn beats visitors boosting their physical attributes and swimming for me, but for the diplomat - why, the pool of water does not necessarily need to be before tavern, as they start out by going to your expedition leader or mayor. Maybe like this:

outside
 .
 .
 .
##+++
##˘++
####+
##˘++
♚+++++

[Quarque]

Lots of creative solutions, thanks everyone! I wasn´t even aware that normal doors can be locked.

Incidentally, the last fort I played before this disaster fell to a wereskunk, and ended up with two infected dwarves and one infected diplomat as the only survivors. In that game I attempted to let the two weredwarves drown themselves by digging holes they could not escape and breaching wet stone, so that I could start over with the next batch of immigrants. But I bungled the attempt, I must have forgotten to level a ramp somewhere. At that point I had enough and abandoned the fortress to ruin.
I wonder if this has anything to do with it. It was the same generated world. A strange coincidence, to be sure.

[bloop_bleep]

Was the diplomat in your latest fort also a wereskunk? Because that would explain it -- the outpost liaison got infected in the previous fort and transformed in your new fort.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yeah. If you keep playing in the same world, migrants from your old fort can also arrive at new one (even if you locked them in).

This is naturally much more dangerous than normal werebeasts, as migrants head for your meeting areas upon arrival.

[PatrikLundell]

On the other hand, migrants can be ordered to quarantine areas, so they're easier to screen, but it's a hassle.

[mikekchar]

Migrants always go to a meeting hall.  If you only have one meeting hall, then they will all go there.  Diplomats will also tend to hang out in the meeting hall as well (if they have nothing better to do).  If you make the meeting hall your quarantine area, then it's usually fine.

I may be one of the very few, but were creatures give me no trouble.  The key, as PatrikLundell mentioned, is time.  You just need to delay them.  Pets like dogs are great for that because they will attack and keep the werebeast busy.  The pets don't last long, but you only need to delay for 2-3 days (a strangely short period of time in fortress mode).  Throwing the beast a couple of sacrificial nobles is useful as well.

The key is always to have an evacuation plan.  If the beast is in the fortress, then the citizens need to be outside the fortress.  Or better yet, have a burrow somewhere in the centre where they can turtle for a while.  Locked door will delay them long enough as will chasing your cats all over the fortress.  Just through up distractions while you are evacuating.  Hide behind a drawbridge (or similarly secure location).  Having an evacuation plan is not just useful for were creatures -- you can use it any time you make a mistake (like when a FB or dragon accidentally gets loose).

And again, I will just mention that stationing your injured citizens in far away locations (where they can't see any other creature) a couple of days before the full moon, is enough to deal with the problem.  Some people may not realise that you can station people individually as well as entire squads.  It really is very, very simple.  Either they will turn and do absolutely nothing, or they will not turn and you can unstation them.  If you want, you can station a were creature in a dead end of a mine and just leave them there (though, I guess they will eventually go crazy).